The Clarity Alliance, the UK hi-fi industry’s trade body, held its AGM and Conference , at which it announced the appointments to its board of directors and a sell-out audience enjoyed thought provoking and informative presentations from a number of guest speakers.

​Alon Wolf, founder of high end loudspeaker brand Magico brought his latest loudspeaker, to show the press just what could be done if you make the decision to invest in building larger quantities. Big outfits do this all the time and reap the rewards of economies in scale, usually to the benefit of the consumer. However, Magico inhabit the world of high end audio with essentially bespoke, to order manufacture, with small batch quantities of raw materials, hand crafted assembly and resulting high prices.

Brands listed as at 2/2/2018:

October to December 2017, due out end of December

Reviewed products from Rotel, NAD, Spendor, Magico, LINN, PROAC, Amazon Alexa, Pass, Chord, ATC, Sonos,  HEOS , MusiCast, DSD Audio, QED, Focal and MBA.
 
In addition to Stan Curtis’ regular wise commentary on matters audio, here musing on pioneers of the analysis of subtle effects such as vibration on audio quality, Martin Colloms scrutinises the top of the line LINN KLIMAX Katalyst DS digital audio player, the one where the powerful DSP even includes micro correction for the tiniest errors emanating from the audio output transformers.

At the Indulgence Show 30th September to 1st October, 2017, some 250 brands were exhibited over 5 floors of the Hammersmith Novotel (formerly the Cunard) including some massive suites with substantial sound systems. Both live music and music production featured, and as before, a massive floor area was devoted to headphones earphones and supporting amplification.

​We are busy finalising the features and reviews for the upcoming issue of HIFICRITIC.
 
Review product brands include Wilson Audio, Audio Analogue, KEF, PROAC, DCS, LINN, Audio Note, Rotel, Pearl Acoustics, Audeze, Tannoy, Phil Jones Airpulse Songkong, Naim, Tannoy, Audeze, Rega, MSB, Acoustic Energy and not least, PMC.

​We were just over a month in when we rolled up for the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A London, and while arguments still rage as to what kind of rock band they were, their global success is undisputed. I wondered how such an exhibit spanning almost half a century of work, and ideally with a massive musical content, could possibly be curated?  Would it be saddled with traditional museum stuffiness, a sort of expanded biography with static exhibits?

Programme: Mozart  Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,  Mozart  Concerto for Flute and Harp,  Bach Air ‘on the G string’,  Mozart  Symphony No 29 in A, with Rimma Sushanskaya, conductor and solo violin, Jean Kelly harp and Fiona Kelly flute. 

Chasing the Dragon’s founder, the irrepressible Mike Valentine was at work recently recording this live Mozart concert at St Martin in the fields.

The playing was spirited and communicative, the acoustic rich, with delightful sting tone, and we look forward to hearing the several recording formats which include CD and HD.

chasingthedragon.co.uk.

Mike Valentine’s enthusiasm for making audiophile recordings is undiminished and brought the press, including Mike Fremer of Stereophile, and myself amongst others,, to the legendary Air Studios for yet another session, each more ambitious than the last. 

​The refreshed  Clarity board  has Tom Barron (PMC) chairman; Andy Clough (Haymarket); Geoff Coleman (Acoustica); Phil Hansen (Red Sheep Communications); Geoff Mathews (Soundcraft Hi-Fi); Ian Sutton (B&W); Simon Talbot (Bartletts HiFi); Richard Trotter (Arcam) and Trevor Wilson (Naim). Retiring chairman, Laurence Armstrong (Henley Designs), remains on the board in an ex-officio capacity. The board also agreed to co-opt Elizabeth Gould (Martins Hi-Fi). Roger Batchelor and Alan Sircom have both retired from the board and thanks were expressed to them for their hard work and contributions to the running of Clarity over the past few years. Following the  board meeting /AGM , with the election of new officers and the admission of new  industry members  including NAIM and Focal,  the Clarity conference kicked off in the Dolby Theatre with an  opening  presentation by Venkat Venkateshwaran of Dolby with a couple of movie excerpts including the Revenant, showing off their double laser projector with full dynamic range Dolby Vision together with an upgraded and still more powerful full surround object based ATMOS sound. This is only complete UK installation of its kind, one of only four in Europe. Forewarned, I knew this system could blow a massive racket and wore 10dB attenuating defenders just in case.